This Is the Way the World Ends (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

by James Morrow

  ‘We have ninety percent of the world’s ice here,’ said Dimitri later that afternoon, ‘See that glacier? Mulock. My place of birth.’

  ‘Birth?’ said George.

  ‘It was a birth to me, Paxton. Being dust and then suddenly getting a body and thoughts and cracking out of the ice, well, maybe it wasn’t snuggly blankets and my own private tit, but, by damn, it was something.’

  On the outskirts of Ice Limbo 415 a scopas-suited Bulgarian ballerina danced. Despite her attire she was quite graceful, and her face displayed the sort of intellectual frown that George had so often seen and admired on Morning Valcourt. Morning is doing something at this very moment, he realized. Something ordinary? Sleeping? Eating? More likely – something profound. She is musing profoundly about Leonardo’s vulture fantasy . . .

  Between Limbos 416 and 417 a Norwegian man with a fishing pole and a hacksaw tried to cut a hole in the ice. A flock of penguins ambled into view. Antarctica, Dimitri explained, held the planet’s one remaining ecosystem, a dystopia of birds and aquatic mammals awaiting the inevitable hour. George was endlessly saddened by the penguins’ trusting faces, their stuffedanimal cuteness, their utter obliviousness to the imminence of the bird who is like a writing desk.

  ‘Hey, Paxton, maybe you can settle an argument,’ said Dimitri. ‘I would have been Greek, okay? That means I would have hated all other Greeks, right?’

  ‘Oh, for pity’s sake,’ laughed Gila Guizot. ‘That’s completely backwards. You would have hated non-Greeks.’

  ‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ said Dimitri.

  ‘Take me, I would have been French,’ said Gila. ‘Also a Catholic.’

  ‘And proud of it,’ explained George.

  ‘Proud of French Catholics?’ asked Dimitri.

  ‘Proud to be a French Catholic,’ George answered patiently.

  ‘There, you see?’ said Gila. ‘I was right.’

  ‘What did she have to do to become a French Catholic?’ asked Dimitri.

  ‘Her parents would have been French Catholics,’ said George.

  ‘I seem to recall something about Protestants,’ said Dimitri. ‘She would have been proud of Protestants, too, right?’

  ‘She would have been proud to be a Protestant,’ said George. ‘If she had been one, that is.’

  ‘She would have been just a Catholic? Not a Protestant too?’

  ‘You were never both!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You just weren’t,’ said George.

  ‘Too bad – she could have been even prouder,’ said Dimitri.

  ‘If she was both, I think she would have been less proud.’

  ‘Don’t mock me, Paxton.’

  ‘What are you?’ asked Gila.

  ‘A Unitarian,’ said George.

  ‘You were the ones who hated Jews – did I remember that right?’ asked Gila.

  ‘No,’ said George.

  ‘Muslims?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Paxton is proud of everybody,’ said Dimitri knowingly.

  Night came but not darkness, only the perpetual gloom of the late Antarctic summer. George dreamed of spermatids reaching epididymides and growing fine, strong tails.

  At dawn the caravan began crossing the foot of the Nimrod Glacier, a river of ice gushing motionlessly from the interior plateau to the shelf. The warped and crevassed surface of the glacial tongue spread toward a promontory called Mount Christ-church, at the bottom of which sat a building made of the forever-frozen material known locally as Antarctic steel.

  ‘The Ice Palace of Justice,’ said Gila, pointing. It was a soaring, gaudy structure whose various intricacies – buttressed walls, bas-relief towers, decorous gates – seemed to disguise a sinister agenda, like the peppermint trim on a witch’s house. ‘Your new home.’

  ‘I’m hoping to see the South Pole,’ said George.

  ‘This place is much more interesting than the South Pole,’ said Dimitri.

  ‘I need to get there.’

  ‘The South Pole is over five hundred miles from here. Between the lack of public transportation and the fact that we intend to hang you soon, you’ll have to settle for the Ice Palace of Justice.’

  The caravan slithered into the central courtyard. Dimitri twisted the ignition key; the Cat’s engine sputtered and died. As Gila dragged George into the frigid air, the wind tore nails of ice from the palace walls and flung them against his suit. The demonstrators waved their signs and brandished their frozen eggs. George and his co-defendants came together in a shivering, forlorn huddle. Wengernook glowered. Randstable hugged his magnetic chess set. Overwhite examined himself for neck tumors. Reverend Sparrow spoke with God. Even the bulk of his scopas suit could not keep Brat from looking pathologically underweight.

  Police officers held back the demonstrators. The ground vibrated with angry shouts and the pounding of banner poles. NO MERCY FOR SPECIES KILLERS. George had never seen that one before. EXTINGUISH THE EXTINCTIONISTS. Nor that one. He longed for the witness stand – longed for it, feared it. Anybody would have signed that contract.

  A rock-hard little man came forward brandishing a copy of the McMurdo Sound Agreement. The emblem on his scopas suit declared that he was a captain in the Antarctic Corps of Guards, and his nameplate said JUAN RAMOS. Silence settled, as if the lights were dimming in a crowded concert hall.

  A conversation drifted into George’s ear.

  ‘. . . people who ended the world,’ a man was saying.

  ‘Bad people?’ a small boy asked.

  ‘Must be,’ said the man.

  ‘Father . . . ?’

  ‘Yes, son?’

  ‘How soon before we die?’

  ‘Two months.’

  ‘Is that long?’

  ‘Oh, yes, son. Very long. Very, very long. Be quiet now.’

  ‘As Chief Jailor of the Antarctic National Dungeon,’ Juan Ramos began, ‘my first duty is to read you Article Sixteen of the Charter of the International Military and Civilian Tribunal.’

  ‘Dungeon? I don’t like the sound of that!’ bellowed Brat.

  ‘There are rules in this world for treating war prisoners!’

  Someone hurled a scopas suit glove filled with seal dung. It struck Brat’s helmet and erupted.

  ‘ “Article Sixteen – Procedures for Ensuring the Defendants a Fair Trial.” ’ Juan Ramos’s mustache flared from each side of his upper lip like the hind legs of a tarantula. ‘ “Section A – The indictment shall specify in detail the charges against the accused, and, furthermore, a copy of the indictment, translated into a language that he understands, shall be furnished to each defendant.” ’ Gulls and skuas spiraled gracefully around the palace towers. ‘ “Section B – Each defendant shall have the right, through himself or through counsel, to present evidence at the trial in support of his case.” ’ Ramos climbed atop a five-foot pressure ridge. The wind wriggled his mustache; it seemed about to scurry away. ‘My second duty is to announce that your collective bail has been set in the amount of three hundred and sixty-two billion dollars, which, as it happens, is equal to last year’s United States Defense Department budget.’ He paused, grinned. ‘If by any chance you have this sum among you, I shall immediately contact your advocate on the matter of your release.’

  A stairwell dropped from the courtyard into the white, cold interior of the glacier. Gila Guizot’s assault rifle steered George down the steps and then through several hundred feet of rising and falling, twisting and turning passageways. Seal-oil lamps sputtered along the dungeon walls. Guards streamed back and forth, their faces evincing anger, hatred, sadness, and badly developed consciences.

  CELL 6 – PAXTON said the sign on the iron door. Stepping inside, George was shocked to see muted February sunlight spreading everywhere. He looked up. A transparent slab of ice roofed his cell. Gray, ugly clouds clogged the sky.

  The place had been thoroughly suicide-proofed. The ice ceiling offered no purchase for a noose, and the edges of the furn
iture – bed, chairs, writing desk, commode – had been sanded into blunt little knolls. For some reason they let him keep his Leonardo, though he might easily have shattered it and then opened his wrist with a fragment. Why this privilege? One day a clue appeared, etched in the transparent ceiling. It was a quote from Fyodor Dostoevsky: ‘The end of the world will be marked by acts of unfathomable compassion.’

  And so George settled into prison life. He expected a repetition of his recent solitary confinement aboard the submarine, boredom without end. And for the first seventy-two hours, boredom is exactly what the dungeon delivered. Nothing happened there, not even the passage of the sun, the continent being in the twilight of its six-month day. George lay on his ice bed, sleeping, not sleeping, brooding, reading the indictment, visiting his psychic museum – Morning in her wedding dress, Morning suckling Aubrey.

  Then the tortures began. Contrary to Brat’s fears, the genre of excruciation practiced at the Antarctic National Dungeon fell well within the definition of civilized behavior prescribed by the Geneva Protocols.

  The prisoners’ torture was this: they were given whatever they wanted. They had only to name a pleasure, and it was theirs. Food? At six o’clock each evening Ramos’s underlings would serve a dinner that regarded every human taste bud as an erogenous zone; several bestselling cookbooks could have been derived from the secrets of preparing Adélie penguin en brochette and sea lion flambeé. Drink? The milk of the Weddell seal displayed extraordinarily un-milklike properties when fermented. Sex? What the local prostitutes lacked in experience they made up for in eagerness. Intellectual stimulation? Antarctica’s population included a large supply of hypothetical Pulitzer Prize recipients.

  Above each cell, lively little mobs gathered, and as the prisoners indulged themselves, the darkbloods stared down through the transparent roof. Eyes filled the heavens like dying stars. The spectators clapped, whistled, stomped their feet, and chanted, ‘Let us in!’ It was a sport of ever-growing popularity. People brought lunch.

  The first time George was offered a mug of coffee under these conditions, he swallowed it with equanimity. The second time, he took the mug to a corner and faced the walls, drinking in small, furtive sips. The third time, he let the coffee grow cold.

  A prostitute named Trudy came calling. She had gained the continent in her physical prime. ‘Sorry it isn’t more private,’ she said, fiddling with George’s Velcro. ‘Just pretend they aren’t there.’

  He glanced up. A young man with a Göttingen University patch on his scopas suit returned his gaze. ‘I would like you to go,’ said George.

  ‘Go?’ said Trudy.

  ‘You are very pretty,’ said George. ‘Please leave.’

  ‘Okay . . . but I want you to answer me a question.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ll bet you can imagine what my question is.’

  ‘No, I can’t.’

  ‘Imagine.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘My question is, why the fuck did you end the world?’

  Although the large central cell was intended for exercise, the defendants preferred using it for poker, which was permitted once an evening for ninety minutes. They bet food. Whenever a game ended, Juan Ramos appropriated most of the winnings and ate them on the spot. ‘We are not good,’ he explained. ‘Merely innocent.’

  On the night before the trial was to begin, George returned from the poker game to find two lawyers in his cell. Gorgeous Dennie Howe he remembered from his inquisition at McMurdo Station. (Oh, the hearts she would have shattered . . . ) Her companion, who introduced himself as Parkman Cleave, looked even more callow than the rest of the defense team. George offered his visitors ice chairs. Children, he thought, always they send children. I’m being defended by a goddamn kindergarten.

  ‘We’ve just come from the Documents Division,’ said Dennie. ‘It’s like a monastery over there – papers culled from every corner of the United States and Western Europe, scribes copying page after page by candlelight.’

  ‘They arrived on a barge,’ said Parkman. His smile was as flashy as the clasps on his briefcase. ‘The Spirit of the Law.’

  ‘First, the good news,’ said Dennie. ‘Out of twenty tons of cargo, the entire case against you consists of one scopas suit sales contract.’

  ‘I know,’ said George.

  ‘Anything to drink around here?’ Parkman asked.

  ‘Cocoa. Coffee.’

  The lawyers smiled in unison, ordered cocoa. George began heating water on a whale-oil stove.

  ‘Now, the bad news,’ said Dennie.

  ‘The chief prosecutor is Alexander Aquinas,’ said Parkman.

  ‘Never heard of him,’ said George.

  ‘Really? Oh – of course not,’ said Parkman. A smile pushed aside his cheeks, which were as smooth and pink as buffered Oklahoma granite. ‘If you’ve got Alexander Aquinas around, you can put away your steel traps.’

  ‘His books would have dealt mortal blows to plea bargaining and the insanity defense,’ Dennie explained with an admiration George thought might have been a touch more reluctant. ‘Alexander Aquinas would have gotten judges to hang their mothers.’

  George spooned brown powder into two mugs, added hot water, served the sweet-smelling results.

  ‘You’re not having any?’ Parkman asked. Chocolate steam rolled through the cell.

  ‘No.’

  ‘We want to tell you how to plead,’ said Dennie.

  ‘Not guilty,’ said George.

  ‘That’s almost right,’ said Parkman.

  ‘You must say, “Not guilty in the sense of the indictment,” ’ said Dennie.

  ‘Why?’ said George.

  ‘Because you’re not guilty,’ said Parkman.

  ‘In the sense of the indictment,’ said Dennie. ‘That’s how the Nazi war criminals pleaded,’ she added merrily.

  ‘We also want to teach you some tactics,’ said Parkman. ‘You must make a good impression on the judges.’

  ‘Keep your suit clean,’ said Dennie.

  ‘When the barber comes around, avail yourself of his services,’ said Parkman. ‘Let’s go for less hair, a neater beard, right?’

  ‘When you’re on the stand, it’s okay if you look nervous,’ said Dennie.

  ‘Try to look nervous, in fact,’ said Parkman. ‘We want to avoid that cold-blooded nuclear warrior image.’

  ‘Pretty child,’ said Dennie, lifting the Leonardo from the nightstand. ‘Your daughter?’

  ‘Bonenfant thinks he can get us off,’ said George, snatching away the priceless painting. ‘He said there’s a rabbit or two in his hat.’

  ‘It all depends on whether we find a vulture expert,’ said Parkman.

  ‘A what?’ said George.

  ‘Vulture expert,’ said Dennie.

  ‘Ever hear of the Teratornis?’ asked Parkman.

  ‘No,’ said George.

  ‘A species of vulture,’ said Dennie.

  ‘Obviously you’re not a vulture expert,’ said Parkman.

  Vultures.

  A shock of recognition surged through George. He had seen Parkman Cleave before . . . on the submarine . . . wearing a business suit. . . holding a bag of carrion. ‘I know you! You’re the one who takes care of my vulture!’

  ‘Your vulture?’ said Parkman.

  ‘Dr Valcourt calls it my vulture. It’s not really mine. I first ran into it at ground zero, then again on the boat, when you fed it.’ George returned his family to the nightstand. ‘Dr Valcourt told me that vultures can reproduce without males. They’re inseminated by the winds – that’s what people used to believe. Do you keep it as a charm? Perhaps it will bring your race good luck. It’s certainly big enough.’

  ‘Nothing can bring our race good luck,’ said Parkman.

  ‘No animals are inseminated by the winds,’ said Dennie.

  ‘Not even teratorns,’ said Parkman.

  ‘When you’re defending the men accused of ending the world,’ Dennie expla
ined, ‘you try everything you can think of.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  In Which It Is Shown that the End of the World Was More Necessary than Previously Supposed

  Across the interior plateau, down the great static swells of the Nimrod Glacier came the legions, shoulder to shoulder, bound for the trial of the millennium. The tromp of their boots sent fissures shooting across the continent’s ice fields and brought waves to its lakes and bays. Rushing from the Transantarctic Mountain Range, unadmitted tributaries flowed together in an endless torrent: male, female, young, old, Negro, Nordic, Alpine, Oriental, Pygmy, Eskimo. The pilgrims moved with exuberance and purpose, dodging nunataks, circumventing crevasses. Many of them whistled. A few skipped. Their signs and banners swayed in joyful arcs. Songs warmed the frigid air. For the first time since the darkbloods’ arrival, their future crackled with promise: at last they were to receive their due measure of cosmic knowledge, at last they would learn why it had been necessary to end the world.

  The sight of the Ice Palace of Justice sent their buoyant spirits even higher. This was the final great construction project undertaken on earth, Antarctica’s omega to ancient Giza’s alpha, and its white towers, glittery parapets, frisky pennants, and Gothic windows made the pilgrims stop and gape. The drawbridge trembled under the first wave of darkbloods, the lucky ones who would get seats. The throngs left outside cast their eyes on the great ice tablets that formed the eastern face of Mount Christchurch. DEFENDANTS TO BE ARRAIGNED TODAY, the news sculptors had carved in the slopes in letters three feet high. TRIBUNAL WILL HEAR OPENING ARGUMENTS.

  The courtroom was as solemn and self-important as the nave of a cathedral. End-of-summer sunlight streamed through the gutcovered windows, suffusing the air with ghostly cheer. Drooping from the balustrades and beams, a thousand melting icicles ticked away. The bulletproof glass booth in the center of the room had been intended to protect high-roller crap games aboard the City of New York; now it protected the Erebus Six. George sat between Brat and Wengernook, the latter sucking violently on an unlit cigarette and tying his fingers in knots. Reverend Sparrow pored over a small Bible. Overwhite napped after a sleepless night induced by darkblood tortures. Randstable worked on converting his suit’s primus stove into a device for keeping his cocoa at a constant temperature.